Select a Skill.
The prompt hung before , wholly incessant from the mont I awoke. I looked at it emptily for a while, brain slow and filled with heavy fog. I had not slept well this night. But the System gave no fucks, and it was happy to let know that fact.
With little choice, I dragged my tired eyes across the small selection of Skills that hovered before .
Hew The Earth offered no hidden surprises. Within the ntal image, a farr thodically did as described. A hoe rent through the earth, weeds cleaved from their roots with every cut. I felt the vague sense that this would also enable to more easily work the dirt overall. Tasks that involved displacing and moving ground would be ever so slightly easier.
Choke The Weeds made a compelling argunt for its own selection. Unlike the previous selection, it required no actual work. A very specific skill, but a powerful one. Again, a vague sense inford that upon all my farmland, weeds would find the soil inhospitable. No matter how rich and damp it actually was.
I gave serious consideration to this skill. Most of the spring and early sumr of a farrs life was an endless war against weeds. Even with the proper equipnt and specific chemicals, it consud so much ti. And without those and naught but a hoe in hand to root them out? My days ahead looked monotonous indeed.
Raise The Crops did not seem like overmuch, at first glance. It simply inspired the crops to grow just a small bit faster. A pathetic amount, really. A farr that selected this could expect to harvest their crops about a week before others planted at a similar ti. Definitely not worth an investnt of your first Skill slot.
That was where I happily diverged from most people, however. Courtesy of the old Garek, I possessed Gold Is Power. Now, I was not the happy owner of a small stache of gold. I carried a small fucking fortune, and I was about to prove the old saying about unspent gold being useless so fucking wrong.
Choke The Weeds was the easy way out. All it promised was less work for . Hew The Earth whispered promises that my work would be easier. And yet, I did not even need to engage myself in the mind-numbing monotony of these tasks. Why do it when I could simply hire Ishila and focus my efforts on other enterprises?
It was not a given if I could hire her services full-ti, but given her work yesterday, the half-orc girls help would make things much faster. The perks of being raised in a farm environnt were that you ca with all the necessary skills to work upon another farm built-in. Without much other thought, I selected Raise The Crops and watched the words vanish before my eyes.
A quick check made sure that my new skill was indeed already delivered. Another to make sure it was turned on and hard at work.
With Ishila not yet arrived, I instead had to be satisfied with Gols ager company as I planned out my day. I would need to make a trip to Hullbretch soon, simply for wood. I had trees that had been carved to serve the purpose, but I sorely wanted proper stakes and fence posts. Even with the cost in coin, they were a far better investnt than settling for tree branches. I wrote that off for another day in the near future and instead looked over my field. For now, I had a single crop seeded in with as much of the wheat as possible, and then barley for the rest. I would need more room. A second crop of oats would be optimal, and then a third, empty piece of land I would rotate the crop into to prevent land fatigue.
In short order, I would need bins or whatever I could substitute those with in this new world, stables for horses, and shelter for other animals. Like as not, unless I was particularly fond of pulling wagons filled with grain myself, I would have to get animals to do it for . They were a cost to buy and provide for, but a necessary one.
And so, I would need stables. They could mingle with the cows, but I would need a significant pasture. Which called for significant fence posts and significant costs. Yay. I had to visit the Huntress and buy hides in bulk, to properly cover all these buildings I had planned. Ishila sauntered up shortly later, happy as you please. Happiness that remarkably didnt falter as I handed her my axe and instructed her to clear the stream.
I could probably have done that myself, with so ti, but I had a dozen different matters that I all wanted attended to yesterday. With instructions to begin clearing the second field once she was finished, Ard with a minotaur-sized claymore instead, I set off for the Huntresss cabin.
A bearded elf sat on the porch of a house larger than my own a few miles up the road, pipe in his lips and expression cross. He offered no greeting, and I chose not to disturb the man as I lumbered past his farmstead. His crops were already half-grown, I noticed, and nary a bird disturbed his skies. Respectable.
It was late morning when I finally arrived at the first crossroads. Further up towards the mountain, the path diverged. One directly towards the Redtip, the other a different, slower path in the sa direction. Ishilas instructions guided down the slower path, and I followed. It was less of a road and more of a worn, choked trail between the trees that lood to either side.
Any remnants of the trail disappeared when next I turned and began to follow only landmarks. Now, I was in the wilderness, with only vague gleams of the sun overhead to guide .
I erged from the shrouded overgrowth into a clearing and stopped cold. Not for surprise, but because of the wire I had felt mid-stride. With careful movents, I slowly eased my foot backward. Not today. Whatever traps there were, I had not sprung them.
The Huntresss ho resembled a lodge. All manner of hides were being cured across racks along one side, stretched and fleshed.
Bundles of white, knotted vines hung down the side of her house, spread every few feet. They radiated heat as I approached, yet curious glances did not reveal why. Just another mystery. Knocks upon the door went unanswered, and I was presented with a choice. Leave and perhaps get more work done, or wait for her return.
It had been a gamble that she would be here, given her nature as a Huntress. But I did not believe in returning from a task empty-handed.
Instead, I took the opportunity to examine her domicile more closely. In contrast to my more traditional farmhouse, she lived in a rectangular wooden lodge. Where I had used strictly wood and nails to build my ho, hers was notched logs with materials woven through to fill the gaps. Where I would have constructed a solid roof for the side overhang, she had a stretched net of hides pulled towards wooden pillars for shade.
The sa hides also covered her roof. The exact reason for which I was here.
There was not an absence of noise here that could have warned . No, everything was normal, save for the javelin-tip that suddenly introduced itself to my ribs. Not overtly rude, however. rely a firm poke. And yet that alone was enough to make stiffen.
Bull. Ca the Huntress distinct, flat voice. Youre on my land.
Im here to trade. I should be proud of how smoothly that response ca out. I sounded cool and in control here.
The huntress snorted and withdrew. I had barely unstiffened my spine when she walked past, a carcass slung over her shoulder. A rapidly shrinking arrow she carried in one hand, and massive deer-like creature in the other. Blood still trickled from the hole torn in its neck, a fact she was suprely unconcerned about.
This close, I could make out feline features with Gareks middling eyesight. Sharpened ears atop her head, a tail beneath her heavy cloak. The huntress has dressed for the environnt, all muted brown and green. Tinged with red now that blood had dripped over her cloak. The creature she carried was tossed into the shade of the overhang as she turned to , arms folded.
Her one good eye was distinctly feline, I recognized now. Though I didnt take too much ti to stare at it.
Your business, Lerish demanded, blunt as a hamr. Get to it.
She remained just as unimpressed through my explanation that I needed as many hides as she could spare.
Sold most of my stock to the tanner a while ago. She told , her back turned. I watched as she looped a rope around a free-standing pillar. Quick movents brought the rope down, fastened it to the deer-things hind leg and then yanked it into the air. If I had to judge, that carcass weighed several hundred pounds, yet it was hauled skyward with only a modicum of effort. It was promptly tied off and despite it being midday, the huntress lit a fire next to the corpse.
Those there still need to be completely cured before I will sell them. She gestured at the racks that dried next to her lodge. I watched, arms folded as she squatted down and held the blade above the fla.
I need as many as you can procure. I reiterated. "As fast as you can source them.
A noncommittal grunt was all that got from her. The deer-like creature that hung from the rope had a large, furred hide pocketed by crystalline growths. A closer look found that small buds grew everywhere on its back, with tendrils that skimd across the surface like roots. An entire ecosystem of them seed to grow from the creature, almost serene and beautiful.
Crystalcoat. She explained, knifes blade almost red-hot. Parasite.
With that, she stood and began to dig away at the hide. Knife blade jamd into the coat, she dug out a crystalline bud, held it up and then tossed it into the fire. The small fire sparked and flared, its fla a sickly green for a mont.
Dont eat anything with these on their coat. She growled. Less you wanna die in agony. Cant stop you then.
She held one up to , and I gingerly took it.
Looks pretty, dont it?
I nodded in agreent. It did, in fact, look beautiful.
Latches onto the skin and pumps in toxin that removes pain. Or the ability to feel pain. Long as it gets fed, everything is fine. If it isnt fed, that toxic washes out. And the agony sets in. Keeps the host incentivized to feed it, see?
That was the longest sentence I had heard from her yet.
The point of this information is to leave them alone?
No. She looked at then, a frown on her face. Kill them and Ill trade them for hides. Dont worry about at, just leave the hides for .
She gestured at the flas, where I could see burnt-out buds that had rolled out from the coal.
Alchemists want these buds. So fool in Hullbretch is trying to make a potion to deaden pain. I have other uses. Buds for hides.
How about gold for hides? I offered.
That works as well. She grumbled, already at work. I have a stack inside, and more on the way. Can bring them to your farm once they are done.
You know where that is. Not a question, a statent. She just shrugged and kept on extracting buds.
Of course. Know where everyone near the redtip lives.
I chose not to question that further. But soon, I was lighter on gold and heavier on hides. I exchanged nas as a formality, although I was sure we were already familiar with each other's nas. With a large bundle of hides on my shoulder, I set out for ho, a rapidly clouded sky in my wake.
Life was, at this point, proceeding nicely.
And then fate proved wrong by making it rain.
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